In the shuffling process, she’d glimpsed the number printed on his boarding pass. It was for the other side of the plane, one row back. She glanced across the aisle at the passenger who had silently slid into the open seat. He shrugged apologetically, but did not offer to switch.
Her unwelcome companion beamed with delight. “What luck,” he said cheerfully. Instantly cured of his aches, he curved in his seat to face the author. “We get to spend more time together.” He bent the straw from his cup, which he had miraculously managed to carry with him, and slurped the last sip of the drink.
“Stewardess,” he hollered, pressing the call light over his head.
“Mojito, please!”
•
FOR THE DESPONDENT author, claustrophobia had already set in by the time the passenger doors closed and the plane pulled away from the gate.
Bumping and creaking along the tarmac, the aircraft began a slow roll toward the runway. The writer tilted her head, craning to look out the nearest window. Planes were lined up, for as far as she could see, waiting to take off. An on-time departure appeared unlikely.
It was going to be a long flight.
“My mother, rest her soul. She died a painful death.”
The author did her best to manage a sympathetic smile.
“Cancer. That’s what did her in. It was a horrible thing to watch. No one should have to go through that.”
Her seatmate motioned toward his wasting limbs. “That’s why, when my time comes, I’m going to finish things off real quick.” Swinging his arm upward, he pointed two bony fingers at his temple. “Maybe I’ll do it Hemingway-style with a gunshot to the head. I’m telling you, Hem knew what he was doing. Not like my poor mother, rest her soul.”
The author shuffled her feet, trying to figure out what she’d done to provoke this unsolicited barrage of information—and whether there was any way of stopping it.
The answer to the second question appeared to be no.
“I can see it coming—death—like the headlights of a car that’s about to run me over. It’s driving straight for me. I need to get in front of this thing. Take control, so that I go out on my own terms.”
He tapped the armrest.
“What do you think? How should I do it? What’s your preferred method of suicide?”
•
AFTER A TWENTY-MINUTE crawl across the tarmac, the plane approached the front of the takeoff line. The pilot announced that he had reached the number-two slot in the order and that the craft would be in the air momentarily.
The passengers in the coach compartment let out a sigh of relief, particularly those seated within the vicinity of 26D. The Mojito Man had been chattering nonstop throughout the excruciating taxi from the gate.
The pilot completed his final preflight check and revved the engines. At last, the plane began picking up speed on the open runway.
Then, suddenly, the aircraft slowed. The engines dropped down to an idle, and the plane turned off the marked route. After a crackle of static, the captain’s voice came over the intercom.
“I’m sorry, folks,” he said in a strange voice. “There’ve been some issues on the ground in St. Thomas. Our departure’s been delayed . . . I’m not sure for how long. They’ve asked us to pull off to the side here for a moment. I expect we’ll be headed back to the gate. I’ll give you an update as soon as I have more information.”
There was a confused pause in the cabin as the passengers exchanged puzzled stares.
Then a call light flicked on over row 26, and a plaintive voice summoned the stewardess.
“Ma’am? A mojito, please!”
The woman seated beside him looked up in despair.
“Make that two.”
•
THE PLANE COASTED to a stop on an empty stretch of tarmac, a no-man’s-land amid acres of painted concrete. Murmurs of concern floated down the center aisle as the passengers speculated about what sort of “issues” could have led to the aborted takeoff and the captain’s cryptic message.
The author winced at a sharp elbow poke aimed at the side of her stomach. Having garnered her attention, the Mojito Man pointed at a passenger seated a few rows ahead. The religious figure they’d seen in the waiting area removed a cell phone from his cassock and made a short whispered call.
“The Bishop will get us in the air.”
“I’m quite certain that’s not a bishop,” the woman replied wearily. “And even if he is, I doubt he has that kind of pull.”
But a minute later, the pilot returned to the intercom. “Good news, folks. It seems we’ve been given the green light again. Flight attendants, please prepare for takeoff.”
“Told you.” Her seatmate nodded, as if the sequence of events proved his earlier assertion.
“He’s the Bishop of St. Thomas.”
KRAT Roving Radio Station
Charlotte Amalie
St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands
~ 9 ~
I Smell a Rat
“HEY-HO, FELLOW ISLANDERS. This is Dread Fred and the Whaler. If you’ve picked us up, you’re listening to KRAT, the only radio station currently broadcasting here on the Rock—that’s St. Thomas, for all the G-men listening in.”
A fake police siren flooded the transmission before the DJ resumed speaking.
“But, hey. This is no joke. We have some serious cock-a-doodle-do-dah going on down here this mornin’.” He paused, his chair squeaking as he turned to address his fellow broadcaster.
“Whale-man, can we say that on the radio?”
“You can today, my friend.”
Dread Fred grunted his agreement. “It looks like we’ve been paid a visit by the pasty boys from up north.”
Whaler cut in. “Our brothers from another mother.”
“Yeah, and a different father too,” Dread added dryly.
“They came in their finest black-tie attire,” Whaler sang out.
“Ya-hmph.” Dread smacked the table. “But they forgot to wear their ties.”
•
KRAT’S DREAD FRED and Whaler were St. Thomas’s most beloved radio celebrities. Caricatured images of the DJs could be seen throughout the island, on billboards, public benches, and bumper stickers. T-shirts bearing their slogans were top sellers in the local shops.
The pair’s broadcasts were widely followed. As a result, DF&W endorsements were highly sought after, and sponsors vigorously competed for the show’s advertising spots.
But while the men’s voices were well known on the Rock—and often imitated, even parodied by their fans—the duo had taken great care to maintain the anonymity of their physical appearances. Their real-life identities were closely guarded secrets.
It was a necessary precaution.
Although much of the daily broadcast was devoted to jocular back-and-forth between Dread Fred and Whaler, the dialogue frequently touched on sensitive political topics. In the year since the show’s debut, they had poked fun at several high-level government officials, the board of elections, the chief of police, and all fifteen senators in the USVI Legislature.
This explained the DJs’ popularity and their security concerns. The same playful taunts that thrilled their fans peeved the island’s power brokers.
•
AS A MEANS of self-preservation, the KRAT radio stars performed their shows in secret. Subterfuge was part of their regular routine.
While the station had a small brick-and-mortar studio in Charlotte Amalie’s waterfront Frenchtown district, DF&W typically broadcast from less formal—less identifiable—locations throughout the city.
In addition, the men took care to devise on-air personalities who conveyed distinctly different traits from those they actually possessed.
Dread Fred, aka Dreadlocks, was, in fact, bald as a billiard ball. A light-skinned Puerto Rican
, he came from a prominent St. Thomas family whose landholdings dated back to before the Danish transfer. While on the radio Dread frequently complained about the high prices of food, gas, and electricity, his alter ego was independently wealthy, having inherited a small fortune from his grandfather.
Cohost Whaler was the one with the voluminous hair, although he kept his Afro mane flowing freely, untamed by combs, braids, or dreadlocks. It was a beautiful shaggy mop, about which the DJ had become quite vain. Whaler’s frequent on-air admiration of Dread’s fictitious locks was a thinly veiled commentary on his own wild coif.
“Say there, Dread. That’s a mighty fine ’do you’re sporting today. Man, I wish I could sprout a hat like that.”
Dread Fred ran a hand over his bald crown. “Why, thank you, Whaler.” After a short pause, he added with a grimace, “There’s nothing wrong with your short crop, you know.” He cleared his throat. “A lot less maintenance.”
Whaler nodded his head, throwing his thick mane back and forth. “Yeah, I s’pose.” He gave his cohost a smug grin. “But it seems like I’m always worryin’ about the sun crisping my head.”
•
MUCH AS WHALER loved his bountiful hairstyle, even he had to admit it had a downside. All that extra insulation caused him to quickly overheat.
Mobile KRAT had set up that morning inside an unused cistern (in the fervent hopes that it didn’t rain). Whaler had already worked up a thick layer of sweat in the windowless concrete room.
He picked up a towel and wiped it across his damp forehead. The cistern’s poor ventilation was a necessary drawback to the benefits of its hidden location. Given the subject of the day’s broadcast, they were likely to ruffle more than the usual amount of feathers.
The current discussion topic was the US government’s invasion of Charlotte Amalie.
After less than five minutes on the air, Dread had already nicknamed the black-clad federal agents the “pasty boys.”
•
DREAD TOOK A sip from a can of generic diet soda before resuming his commentary. Even with his bald head, he was feeling flushed in the stuffy cistern. The tank’s dank mildew smell wasn’t helping matters.
“Friends and neighbors. If you’ve got any information about the pasty boys—what they’ve been up to, where they’ve been doing it, and to whom—send us a report. The cell towers on the island have been jammed, so you’re going to have to go old-school. Bust out those carrier pigeons . . .”
Whaler cut in from across the room. He stood on a metal ladder attached to an open hatch in the cistern’s roof where he had threaded the KRAT transmission lines. Holding his cell phone up to the hole, he confirmed his findings. “Switch your settings over to the BVI tower. Their signal’s still working.”
“A thanks to our brothers on Tortola,” Dread intoned deeply. “They’re the ones relaying our transmission.”
Whaler returned to the fold-out table where the portable broadcasting gear had been set up. “Now, those brothers are from the same mother.”
“Truth,” Dread replied and then whispered a loud aside into the microphone. “We’re keeping it mobile today in case the pasty boys get too close. Whaler’s got his trainers on, ready to do a runner. If we go dark, stay tuned to this channel. We’ll be back on as soon as we can.”
He pushed a button, triggering a recording of their signature tune, a reggae cover of the classic blues hit “I Smell a Rat.”
Dread bent over his laptop, checking their Internet feed for any updates, while Whaler returned to the ladder. Climbing up, he poked his head through the hatch to look around. “Coast is clear,” he reported uneasily. “So far, anyway.”
Whaler’s cell phone buzzed in his hand, signaling an incoming message. He squinted at the display and read the text aloud. “Legislature shut down. Senators arrested.”
Dread took another drink, this time gulping down the soda. “This is big, Whaler. Bigger than anything we’ve ever covered.”
The two exchanged glances.
They were operating in direct violation of the court order that had been circulated to all of the territory’s radio stations that morning. Their list of potential enemies was about to expand well beyond local politicians—and this time, they were breaking federal law.
The stakes of getting caught had increased dramatically.
•
THE “I SMELL a Rat” jingle was but a short intermission. As the tune wrapped up, Dread brought the microphone to his mouth.
“This just in from one of our listeners: the pasty boys have taken the Legislature . . .”
Whaler hopped down from the ladder. He scooted across the cistern and waved a hand in front of Dread’s face, indicating he had a caller on the line. He had pinned a separate antenna for the cell phone to the edge of the hatch. A jerry-rigged cable connected the phone to the broadcasting equipment on the table.
Flicking a switch for an audio setting, Dread merged the cell phone audio into the live transmission.
A static-scratched voice came through the line.
“Hey, Dread, I’m watching the feds move into Government House right now. I’ve got my camera ready. I’ll send you a pic of the Guv in handcuffs when they lead him out.”
A second caller was soon brought into the conversation.
“We’ve been waiting a long time for this, Dread. Dem crooks are goin’ to get what’s comin’ to them.”
Dread smiled ruefully. A small but vocal segment of the listening base had been convinced of the Governor’s guilt from the moment he was first elected into office. The accusation was one of global culpability—as to the specific nature of the alleged crime, the accusers typically failed to elaborate.
“Let’s keep it going, folks. Give us a ring and tell us what you think. Better yet, tell us what you’re seeing out there on the street.”
Before he could switch to the next caller, a sizeable thump sounded against the roof of the cistern.
The DJs froze, staring at each other.
Whaler stood from his chair by the folding table and crept toward the hatch.
Dread pushed the button to start what he feared might be their last music break.
“I smell a rat, baby.”
~ 10 ~
The Rolling Stones
ONCE MORE, WHALER approached the cistern ladder, this time, peering far more cautiously at the hole in the ceiling.
Dread rose from his seat at the table, disentangling himself from the many wires and cords cluttering its surface. He whispered across the room.
“What do you see?”
Whaler climbed onto the ladder’s lower rungs, trying to look out the hatch without poking his head over the rim. His wild frizz of hair bounced back and forth as he twisted his neck sideways, first one direction and then the other. Finally, he glanced back at Dread and issued his report.
“Sky.”
The Puerto Rican threw his hands up, urging his colleague to move higher for a better look.
Tentatively, Whaler lifted his left foot to the next rung. He was about to shift his weight onto the upper step when a small stone rolled across the roof, skipped over the edge, and plinked onto the concrete floor.
Startled, Whaler jumped to the ground, his flip-flops nearly catching on the ladder rungs as he dodged the falling object.
“What in the heck is this?” he said, bending to pick up the stone. He held it up so that Dread could see. The two men stared at what appeared to be an ordinary piece of gravel; then their gazes shifted back to the ceiling.
Had their broadcasting location been discovered? Were the pasty boys waiting for them in the courtyard above? Was this a ploy to flush them out?
Before either DJ could muster an answer to these questions, a second stone of similar size rolled through the hole and dropped to the floor.
Whaler stared at it for a long momen
t before offering his assessment. “Hmnh. Okay, I’m going up.”
Dread inched toward the ladder as Whaler brushed the sweaty hair from his brow, resolutely firmed his lips, and grabbed the metal handlebars.
“Violation of a court order. What’s the worst they can do to us?” Whaler asked as he hefted his slim frame toward the hatch.
Dread’s reply caused him to shudder.
“Send us down to Golden Grove for a couple of weeks.”
Whaler reached the ladder’s upper rungs and began to raise his head through the hole. Three inches of frizzy hair had emerged from the hatch when Dread called out a caution that made Whaler duck like a turtle pulling into its shell.
“Make sure they know you’re unarmed.”
“Dread, man. This is not worth getting shot.”
As Whaler hesitated, looking down into the cistern, a handful of rocks sprinkled through the opening, most of them landing on his head.
“Arrrrrgh!” The howl echoed through the concrete room. Whaler dislodged several pebbles from his scalp. “Okay, that’s it,” he growled, charging up toward the hatch. “I don’t care if it is the pasty boys. No one messes with the ’fro.”
Dread hurried the remaining distance to the ladder as Whaler surged out the opening, stopping with his midsection bent over the ledge. He looked across the cistern roof at the lawn outside the Lutheran church in downtown Charlotte Amalie, where they were located.
“Dread! It’s a couple of punk kids!” His voice cracked with indignation. “I’m going after ’em.”
“No!” Dread hollered up the ladder. “Forget the kids. You’ll blow our cover.”
There was no containing Whaler’s outrage. The stress of the day’s events had converted into aggression.
“Hey! Hey, you over there. You think you’re funny with the rocks? I’ll give you something to laugh about!”
Before Whaler could scramble from the hatch, Dread lunged for his legs. Sliding on the pebbles that had scattered across the floor, he managed to grab Whaler’s bony leg.
Aground on St. Thomas Page 4